Spoiler Alert: Tom Cruise’s Col. Claus von Stauffenberg of Germany’s Tenth Panzer Division does not kill Adolf Hitler in Valkyrie. Although director Bryan Singer and screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander devote the film’s plot to dramatizing von Stauffenberg’s historically correct plan, they get no deeper than telling audiences what they already know. Singer’s approach to history is as trivial and incompetent was as his fantasy process in The Usual Suspects and the X-Men movies. Not only is Singer’s filmmaking aesthetically frustrating (lacking coherent visual rhythm) but his juvenile regard of the July 20, 1944, plot to kill Hitler—one of 15 documented attempts—is intellectually insulting.

Von Stauffenberg’s legend (participating in the little-known German Resistance during WWII) deserves better than Singer’s fanboy enthusiasm. But Valkyrie is what we get after the culture capitulated to Singer’s neo-noir, sci-fi nonsense—our standards have sunk. Torn between duty to his country and allegiance to his personal moral code in the face of the Third Reich’s dehumanizing measures, Von Stauffenberg’s moral turmoil demands an intelligent interpretation. Singer’s previous Holocaust movie Apt Pupil offered trashy, homoerotic paranoia in place of a mature sense of life and politics. Here, Singer’s team traps Tom Cruise in a poorly devised superhero schematic.

When von Stauffenberg performs the “heil Hitler” salute with a missing hand (after a battle injury), the poignant detail suggests that Cruise needed his former in-house screenwriter Robert Towne to convey von Stauffenberg’s Chinatown-like dilemma of social terror, political absurdity and personal compulsion. A desperate man of principal, von Stauffenberg attempts a political coup, partly to redeem honor from the Nazis’ distortion of German heritage. (Thus, Operation Valkyrie, named after Wagner’s Gotterdammerung: “Handmaidens of the gods choosing who will live and who will die”). But when Von Stauffenberg finds himself and his few allies (Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp) isolated and doomed, Singer merely shows them outnumbered—as if stumbling into a Nazi-themed Black Party.

Let’s be clear: Valkyrie’s failure is not Tom Cruise’s. His earnest performance should be as respected as Eastwood’s in Gran Torino, but he’s marooned by Singer’s blockbuster formula. After Cruise’s superbly challenging work in Minority Report, War of the Worlds and Lions for Lambs, there’s no doubt about his against-the-grain idealism. Von Stauffenberg’s insight (“These men are confusing respect with popularity”) speaks to our era. Valkyrie should have been both heroic and elegiac; but Singer shows no appreciation of serious spiritual commitment or moral tension (his onscreen time code reminds us he’s being suspenseful).

"If you are marching with white nationalists, you are by definition not a very nice person. If Malala Yousafzai had taken part in that rally, you'd have to say 'Okay, I guess Malala sucks now.'" ~ John Oliver

Remember when the rumors of reshoots surrounded Tom Cruise having difficulties with his accent. I think most of us thought he was going to a dialect coach to work on it...nope. They just re-shot his faked-accent scenes and went accent-less...

Singer Defends Valkyrie Accents

16 December 2008 5:31 PM, PST

Valkyrie director Bryan Singer has defended his decision to let the non-German cast of the World War II movie use their native accents in the film - insisting it would be less authentic if they tried to fake it.

Some critics have questioned Singer's decision to allow American Tom Cruise and Brits Tom Wilkinson and Kenneth Branagh use their native tongue in the film, even though they play German characters.

But the filmmaker argues they would have sounded stupid and unrealistic attempting to impersonate Germans.

He tells the New York Times, "If everyone was trying to do German accents, the risk of it feeling false was really high.

"It would make no sense. Why would they be speaking in German accents? They're German."

Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin

MGM’s marketing team is working hard to convince audiences that their oft-delayed Tom Cruise vehicle “Valkyrie” is a thriller and not the chatfest “Lions for Lambs” was. But those who've gotten an early glimpse say not only is the film nowhere near as exciting as a thriller, but Cruise’s performance elicits uncomfortable and inappropriate laughs.

Among them: A scene where Cruise’s character, Claus Von Stauffenberg, is forced to give the infamous “Heil Hitler” salute. “It’s an unsettling scene but you almost start to laugh," the source says. "His character is resisting it but you never forget it’s Tom Cruise saying ‘Heil Hitler.’ It’s funny and shocking at the same time.”

Sources also described a scene where Cruise’s character Claus Von Stauffenberg removes a false eye. “It was disgusting,” said one person who saw the film. “It was like watching someone pluck their contacts out.”

"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston

"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster

OscarGuy wrote:Sources close to events said the move was made for purely commercial reasons, after a screening of the film went well. The studio sees it as a holiday pic and award consideration was not a factor, they say.

As if Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner weren’t making enough news today, their “Valkyrie” is back on the 2008 slate.

MGM has moved the film to open Dec. 26, instead of the Feb. 13 date that was previously announced.

Sources close to events said the move was made for purely commercial reasons, after a screening of the film went well. The studio sees it as a holiday pic and award consideration was not a factor, they say. The film is directed by Bryan Singer.

Sony also shifted its Will Smith movie, “Seven Pounds” to Dec. 19, a week after its previously announced Dec. 12 bow.

Wesley Lovell

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin

So that's over, as if we weren't already aware that this was a magnficent stinker.

"If you are marching with white nationalists, you are by definition not a very nice person. If Malala Yousafzai had taken part in that rally, you'd have to say 'Okay, I guess Malala sucks now.'" ~ John Oliver